{"id":13308,"date":"2015-04-23T15:54:19","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T20:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=13308"},"modified":"2015-05-01T18:48:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-01T23:48:41","slug":"video-ex-convict-gives-back-to-his-community-in-the-best-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/video-ex-convict-gives-back-to-his-community-in-the-best-way\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO: Out of prison, he wants to give back to his community &#8216;in the best way&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Amina Ismail<\/p>\n<p>After spending nearly a decade going in and out of prison, Arnold Julien, 47, decided to change his life. He joined One Northside, a non-profit that works on neighborhood equality and social-justice related issues. Julien\u2019s focus is on preventing violence in the very same neighborhoods where he grew up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI felt that I was definitely part of the problem that was being displayed in the communities, so I thought I would fit in best in that part,\u201d Julien said.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Ex-convict &#039;gives back to his community in the best way&#039;\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/125736660?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Raised on the South Side of Chicago, Julien\u2019s family life was unstable at best. His father, a drug user and alcoholic, used to beat him a lot<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy father jumped on me when I was in 8th grade and beat me up as if I was somebody on the street,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Julien doesn\u2019t blame his childhood for his crimes. Instead, he takes responsibility for a lifetime of poor decisions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t say it is the environment\u00a0because me and my sister come from the same environment and we are different in that aspect like night and day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Julien was freed from prison in January of 2014 and has been unable to land a job.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is a feeling like no other,\u201d Julien said. \u201cIt literally hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With nowhere else to go, he turned to One Northside.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel that those are my people,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all go through the same things mentally and emotionally so I felt that I can be an individual who can help individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Julien still has hope of someday finding work. In the meantime, he gives back to his community in the best way he can, by sharing his life and the mistakes he\u2019s made with young men and women at risk.<\/p>\n<div id=\"featurecaption\">Photo at top: Arnold Julien, left, stands with a colleague at the One Northside office. (Amina Ismail\/Medill)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Amina Ismail After spending nearly a decade going in and out of prison, Arnold Julien, 47, decided to change his life. He joined One Northside, a non-profit that works on neighborhood equality and social-justice related issues. Julien\u2019s focus is on preventing violence in the very same neighborhoods where he grew up. \u201cI felt that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":13327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,30,436],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-interest","category-public-affairs","category-spring-2015"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>VIDEO: Out of prison, he wants to give back to his community &#039;in the best way&#039; - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/video-ex-convict-gives-back-to-his-community-in-the-best-way\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"VIDEO: Out of prison, he wants to give back to his community &#039;in the best way&#039; - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Amina Ismail After spending nearly a decade going in and out of prison, Arnold Julien, 47, decided to change his life. He joined One Northside, a non-profit that works on neighborhood equality and social-justice related issues. 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